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Duke's Johnny Dawkins is carried by fans at the Greensboro Coliseum after the Blue Devils defeated Georgia Tech to win the ACC tournament title in 1986. An ACC Network documentary will feature Dawkins' recruiting class at Duke, which includes Jay Bilas, Mark Alarie and David Henderson.

ACC Network will include morning show from a basement, Coach K documentary

Duke's Johnny Dawkins is carried by fans at the Greensboro Coliseum after the Blue Devils defeated Georgia Tech to win the ACC tournament title in 1986. An ACC Network documentary will feature Dawkins' recruiting class at Duke, which includes Jay Bilas, Mark Alarie and David Henderson.

CHARLOTTE, N.C.

Virginia basketball’s season-opener at Syracuse, a three-hour weekday show from a North Carolina basement and a documentary on the recruiting class that saved Mike Krzyzewski’s job headline ACC Network programming announced Friday.

The conference and its television partner, ESPN, staged a news conference prior to Friday night’s ACC semifinals in Charlotte, N.C., and introduced the hosts of the show that will air Monday-Friday from 7-10 a.m., starting with the channel’s Aug. 22 launch date.

Actually, Wes Durham and Mark Packer need no introduction for most ACC fans.

A former Georgia Tech radio voice, Durham has worked six years on regional telecasts of ACC football, basketball and baseball, a role he will continue with the ACC Network. His late father, Woody, is a National Sports Media Association Hall of Famer for his work as the University of North Carolina’s radio voice.

Packer has hosted radio shows in Charlotte and on ESPNU Radio and SiriusXM. His father, Billy, played basketball at Wake Forest and was a pioneering analyst on the ACC’s early regional basketball telecasts.

Durham and Packer have hosted a morning show, ACC Central, on the league’s SiriusXM channel for a year. Their new show, Packer and Durham, will be simulcast on SiriusXM and aired from a studio ESPN is building in the basement of Packer’s home in Charlotte.

“I’m almost speechless today that I’m going to get to do this,” Durham said. “This is so cool.”

ACC commissioner John Swofford said the chemistry evident in the Durham-Packer radio show convinced ESPN and the league to team them for the network. He said the two can “personify” the “comfort” the ACC wants to offer its fans as they transition to the channel.

ESPN also revealed two films that will debut on the ACC Network — “The Class That Saved Coach K” and “The Tournament: A History of ACC Basketball.”

Now in his 39th season as Duke’s basketball coach, Krzyzewski struggled early in his tenure before a senior class led by Johnny Dawkins, Mark Alarie, David Henderson and Jay Bilas emerged. They led the Blue Devils to three consecutive NCAA tournaments, punctuated by the 1986 Final Four.

The ACC had previously announced that to coincide with the network launch and the league’s new 20-game conference schedule, up from 18, it will open next basketball season with a full slate of seven conference games. ESPN said Friday that four of those seven will air on the ACC Network: Virginia at Syracuse, and Notre Dame at North Carolina on Nov. 6; Louisville at Miami, and Georgia Tech at North Carolina State on Nov. 5.

Virginia Tech at Clemson on Nov. 5, and Wake Forest at Boston College, and Florida State at Pittsburgh the following day will air on ESPN2 or ESPNU. Duke will open Nov. 5 against Kansas in the Champions Classic at Madison Square Garden.

The ACC Network’s first football game will be Georgia Tech at reigning national champion Clemson on Aug. 29, and Swofford said other marquee contests, even Duke-North Carolina in basketball, could land exclusively on the ACC Network.

Swofford recalled that as UNC’s athletic director in the early 1990s, he and then-Duke AD Tom Butters agreed to have a Tar Heels-Blue Devils game on ESPN2, which then had far less distribution than ESPN.

“We got a lot of calls from people that couldn’t see it,” Swofford said. “The answer was you’d better get ESPN2 because there’s going to be a lot more games on ESPN2. So the principle is sort of the same.”

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Sports columnist David Teel is a member of the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame. He has chronicled the Atlantic Coast Conference, dozens of college bowl games, 25 NCAA Final Fours, Super Bowl XLIII, the 1996 Summer Olympics and more.

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